Collusion, But His Tweets, and Maybe Something Will Matter Someday

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, July 27, 2018
Two things of note in the endless, tentacled cthulhu that is Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation of Donald Trump's potential collusion with the Russians, which has been happening right out in the open for many years cough.

1. Jim Sciutto, Carl Bernstein, and Marshall Cohen at CNN: Cohen Claims Trump Knew in Advance of 2016 Trump Tower Meeting.
Michael Cohen, [Donald] Trump's former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.

Cohen's claim would contradict repeated denials by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., their lawyers and other administration officials who have said that the president knew nothing about the Trump Tower meeting until he was approached about it by The New York Times in July 2017.

Cohen alleges that he was present, along with several others, when Trump was informed of the Russians' offer by Trump Jr. By Cohen's account, Trump approved going ahead with the meeting with the Russians, according to sources.
Sure. Of course he did. Which is why Trump and his surrogates have long argued that there was nothing unusual or unethical about the meeting, all campaigns seek dirt on their opponents, and hey who wouldn't have gone to meet with someone offering oppo research on their foe — which is all mendacious horseshit which casually ignores that meeting with a foreign adversary to smear one's opponent is not the same as routine oppo research.

Anyway. As you can imagine, Trump had something to say about this report.


Sage words as always from a very stable genius.

Speaking of Trump's tweets...

2. Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman at the New York Times: Mueller Examining Trump's Tweets in Wide-Ranging Obstruction Inquiry. Mueller "is scrutinizing tweets and negative statements from the president about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to three people briefed on the matter. Several of the remarks came as Mr. Trump was also privately pressuring the men — both key witnesses in the inquiry — about the investigation, and Mr. Mueller is examining whether the actions add up to attempts to obstruct the investigation by both intimidating witnesses and pressuring senior law enforcement officials to tamp down the inquiry."

I mean, no fucking shit he's looking at tweets. It would be absurd if he weren't and hasn't long been scrutinizing Trump's tweets.

The "Mueller is definitely still investigating" news is getting pretty thin, folks.

In any case, I will wrap up by saying once again that it feels increasingly to me like nothing truly meaningful (nothing that touches Trump) is ever going to come from the Mueller investigation, and that the investigation itself is effectively if not intentionally just giving the Republican Party time to consolidate power behind their corrupt authoritarian president.

I hope mightily that I am wrong. I would very much like for all of this to matter.
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